


Who am I to say this situation isn't great?

by Florchis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coda Challenge @The FitzSimmons Network, F/M, Framework Fitz - Freeform, Non-graphic sexual situation, s04e15: Self-control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 22:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9926591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: [Post 4x15]She wasn’t supposed to like him and, to be honest, she isn’t sure that she does like him. But he is Fitz, and in every universe, in every iteration of this terrible, messed-up life, they always gravitate towards each other, for better or for worse.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is about Jemma getting entangled with Framework!Fitz. Beware of that before reading. 
> 
> Title and epigraph from "Absolutely zero" by Jason Mraz. I have said before that I wanted to do something about Fitzsimmons with that song, that I was only waiting for the right mind-setting, and the moment had come.

_And it's not an easy thing to learn_

_to play a game that's made for two._

* * *

This is not part of the plan and if Daisy ever finds out, she will be royally pissed.

It’s not exactly that Jemma is planning on telling her, but she is the only person that knows the real her, and with whom Jemma can really act like herself, and Jemma has always been an awful liar, so chances are high that it will slip out.

Anyway, she will have to deal with Daisy’s displeasure and her own guilt and her to come regrets, because _she is doing this_ and maybe she is going out of her mind, but killing the robo version of your boyfriend- that looked like him, and, god, talked and sounded like him too- and then hacking your way into a fantasy world to save your _real_ boyfriend can do that to a person, she supposes.

This is not part of the plan, because the plan is for Daisy to try to go as far as she can in Hydra, in the hope that she will find May- the only puzzle piece they are missing- and for Jemma, in turn, to get high enough in the rankings of this company to get to Radcliffe and make him spit out any information that can be valuable. They are just hoping that Radcliffe programmed himself in with some sort of bigger conscious- like them-, because nobody else has any memories left from the real world: not Mr. Coulson, the teacher that lives around the corner of the house where Daisy lives in; not Mace, who publishes sensacionalist news in the local newspaper; not Mack, who is the mechanic of _Grant bloody Ward._

Not Fitz.

(She would never confess it out loud, but she was kind of hoping that upon seeing her, Fitz would have some sort of epiphany and remember her, the life they have in the real world, everything they have been through together. Of course, knowing their luck, how could anything be that easy for them?)

Part of the plan is also getting as close as possible to the ones that they have found, so when the time comes for all of them to flee, at least they won’t have to drag _all_ of them unconscious or kicking and screaming.

That’s what Jemma is using as her- god, not her _shiel_ _d-_ defense for this utter and complete mess she is getting herself into.

She wasn’t supposed to like him and, to be honest, she isn’t sure that she does like him. But he is Fitz, and in every universe, in every iteration of this terrible, messed-up life, they always gravitate towards each other, for better or for worse.

He is Fitz and her heart melts at watching him even while rage boils in her stomach for how much of an unpleasant human being he can be in this universe.

(She makes a bow that, if both of them make it out of this alive, she will never complain again about his grumpiness, his conceit, his appetite, his untidiness. She knows that she wouldn’t be able to keep that promise for twelve hours straight, but god, how _badly_ she wants to have the opportunity to break it.)       

On the outside he _is_ Fitz, of course, but he doesn’t look exactly the same and she doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse.

(For starters- and she can't stop noticing it-, he doesn’t stutter, ever.)

He is too aloof and too distant, and she can’t help wondering that if, even with his different past and his different upbringing in this universe, things would have been different if he had met her avatar. (Maybe the Jemma Simmons of this universe wouldn’t be dead, who can know.)

He is not the shy-pasty-handsome sixteen-years-old she once met, but she is still an objectively attractive woman and also a smart one, one of the few that can keep up with him even in this dreadful massive building filled to the brim with brilliant people, and well, he notices.

(Jemma wanted him to notice.)

The first time he flirts with her, she wants to smash his head with the tablet she is using, but at the same time she is so glad for the cance to see his golden eyelashes up close that she could cry.

They get along, because of-fucking-course they do; she is the kind of woman that doesn’t take shit from anybody, and he behaves with her. He is not naturally inclined to be mean, even in this universe, he just wasn’t shaped good and honest and kind, and Jemma wonders if his mother is not in the picture, or maybe not as much.

(That’s a note she makes in the tiny notebook she always carries around, that is supposed to be for clues and potentially useful information, but that she uses mostly to jot down every thought she wants to share with him and can’t: _Leopold Fitz, is this what you would have been without your mother and me?)_

When he asks her out, she fires a comment about how he changes girlfriends more often than underpants, and he arches an eyebrow and replies that he will have to pick her up at six so she can prove her hypothesis. She grins the whole trip home, and when she gets home, she cries for two hours straight.

Being close to him is necessary to the plan, but this is just masochism. She feels helpless and weak, and maybe this is what LMD May felt when she found out she was nothing but a program made to fulfil a mission; maybe there is nothing else on her brain programming that getting caught, over and over again, on the orbit of Leopold Fitz.    

She is not in love with him, because this isn’t the man she grew up with, this isn’t the man that was willing to give his life for her, this isn’t the man she would kill for. But how can she not love him, when he has the same eyes, the same voice, almost the same smile?

She is going out with him despite Daisy’s guaranteed disapproval and her own common sense, because maybe the pain can be cleansed and with this sacrifice she can earn herself a handful of restful nights.

(She is going out with him because she has never had it easy- what with being undercover at Hydra and spending six months on an alien planet and being severely depressed for the good part of the last three years- but who knew that being the one left behind could hurt so fucking much.)

* * *

She didn’t mean for things to go this far.

That doesn’t mean that he forced her into this or anything, just that this wasn’t part of the extended version of her plan.

But she put on nice clothes- borrowed from Daisy’s Avatar’s wardrobe- and he took her to a nice place. (Jemma is just eternally grateful that he didn't say the words _someplace nice_ _.)_ It’s easy to talk to him, and Jemma wonders if it’s because of everything she knows about him- some things always remain true, no matter the changes- or because they are just compatible like that, whatever the circumstances. Maybe she should be disgusted by him, by how cynical this world raised him to be. She can't, because maybe she is being too gullible, but she is sure that under the overpriced clothes and the jerk smile, the core of him is the same. And even if that isn’t true, he is smart, always so breathtakingly brilliant, and he is funny, and she misses her Fitz so damn much and, well, she is only human, after all.

She didn’t mean for things to go this far this quickly, but she is not going to be the one stopping them.

She almost cries when he kisses her, so close and at the same time so different to what she knows, what she expects, what she wants. She is not sure if she wants to do this with her eyes closed- as not to be reminded that this could be her Fitz but it’s not- or with his eyes open- to try to pretend that this _is_ her Fitz.

He is gentle, much gentler than she was expecting, and she opens her eyes, because that way she can almost pretend. She notices then that he doesn’t wear his stubble the exact length for her to feel it when he kisses her, but not long enough to get in the way. With his shirt off and his pants loose, she also learns that he doesn’t have that little scar in his hipbone from when he feel on his ass while learning to ice skate when they were at the Academy. She touches his unscathed hip with hands that are reverent, but unfamiliar.  

He undresses her with hands that don’t tremble, and she can notice the hint of some unexpected nervousness behind his bravado.

“What happens? Haven’t you seen a girl with her clothes off before?” She jokes to try to ease his nerves and because she needs to lessen the intimacy of this moment or it will break her.

He doesn’t answer, but he lifts her up to take her to his bed, and Jemma goes willingly.  

She is going to have sex with him because it might help her plan along. Because she needs the stress relief. Because she needs to be reminded of what she is here for (and that’s not him, not this Fitz, not this twisted version of a life). And maybe because she needs to be able to express this desire, this attraction, this visceral pull she feels for him, always, even for this version of him, without arousing suspicions.  

She gets nervous when he starts the trail of kisses that goes down from her neck, because he can’t understand the scars on her chest and her abdomen. He doesn’t comment on them, and through her mind passes the fleeting idea that everyone has their own scars, not matter how unnoticed they can pass by.   

She doesn’t say his name even while he makes her sigh and tremble, because here he goes by _Leo,_ and she is not sure she will be able to stomach it.

She has to give him credit, because his talented hands are the same, and his warm mouth is the same, and he probably knows more tricks than her Fitz when they started sleeping together, but his lips don’t know her lips, his fingers don’t know her body, and his mind doesn’t know her mind.

There are a certain things that are irreplaceable, she supposes, and more than a decade of friendship and partnership is one of them.

She grabs a handful of his very short hair and guides him up again towards her mouth. She feels like se hasn’t had sex in a million years, even though objectively it probably has been just a couple of weeks- she is having a couple of quite insane weeks- and she doesn’t want him to notice how nervous she feels.

He finds a soft spot on her neck just behind her ear, one of Fitz’s favourite spots to kiss, and she panics for a minute, because _how_ is she going to explain this to Fitz when they come back. She must have frozen, because he notices and stops, something she wasn’t expecting at all.

“If you want to stop, you just have to say the word, no questions asked.”

It’s a behaviour so unlike the idea she has of him that she can’t answer for a moment while he removes himself from her body and lies down next to her. She turns around to look at him, and she realises that even though he is different, and he didn’t recognize her, he is not only made of bits and pieces of her boyfriend: Fitz, _her Fitz,_ is actually living this, all this is going through his mind and he feels everything as if it were real.

She leans down and kisses him.        

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't end up being what I originally wanted to write, so I might revisit this idea again in the next 6 weeks!


End file.
